NYC NOW - The Mamdani Baby Boom That Isn't (Yet)

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

The city is expanding free childcare for two-year-olds this fall. Will that actually convince New York parents to grow their families, though? WNYC reporter Karen Yi tells us about parents who have been going into debt, leaving the workforce, and rethinking second kids while waiting for the city's childcare promises to catch up. Photo: Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre. I'm getting older, it's going to become harder to conceive naturally. But at the same time, it's like, well, if we can't afford it, then we can't afford it. But maybe if 2K really expand, that would be a huge help. Some New York City parents are considering whether or not they can afford to grow their families now that Mayor Mumdani has expanded child care for two- and three-year-olds. On today's episode, we check.

with parents around the city to see if and how the mayor's policy has affected their family planning. But first, here's what's happening in our area. More than half of New York City's council members are calling for a ban on artificial intelligence in public schools. This spring, the city's education department released draft guidance that outlined a stoplight approach to AI. There are some exceptions that get a green light, like using AI for translation. However, using AI to assign grades gets a red light, which means it's banned. And using AI for research gets the yellow, meaning proceed with caution. But many parents and educators say that misses the mark.

They want a two-year pause, citing concerns about the cognitive effects on children and damage to the environment. The city's public schools chancellor said he's reconsidering the guidance, given the pushback. A new report by the Coalition for the Homeless says the number of New Yorkers says, the number of New Yorkers seeking city shelter services grew by 27% under the Adams administration. Dave Giffin leads the group. The fundamental problem is there's no place for the lowest income New Yorkers to live. He says even though the city doubled the number of shelter residents who were moving out of the system through housing vouchers, that wasn't enough to keep pace with the influx of non-migrant homeless people needing a bed.

The report calls on Mayor Mumdani's administration to create more apartments specifically for homeless New Yorkers. The city says they're working to prevent people from being homeless in the first place and building a lot more housing. New York City is turning up the heat for the rest of the week. Forecasters are warning that intense weather could roll through the tri-state area Thursday and Friday. Meteorologist Brian Ramsey says thunderstorms will likely follow, bringing a potential for high winds, local floods, hail, and even isolated tornadoes. Damaging wind gusts of 50 to 70 miles per hour are possible. and some of the storms that could lead to damaged trees, down power lines, scattered power outages. The National Weather Service is issuing a heat advisory for Thursday and Friday,

with temps expected to reach the 90s. However, Saturday won't be as hot or humid, so you can get out there and really enjoy the weekend. We've got to take a quick break, but when we return, we're talking family planning, and a possible Mamdani baby boom, stay close. Welcome back. For many New York City parents, the cost of child care makes growing their families feel out of reach. $1,200 a month. $3,000 a month for care.

So, like, 12 months, it's like $36,000 a year. The math is, like, not mathing. Like, there's no way we'd be able to afford this. That's Allison Liu and Paula Rodellis. Earlier this year, WMYC reporter Karen Yee helped us break down what the expansions to free child care for more toddlers might look like for parents who are stretched thin. Now that these policies have been set in motion, Karen has been checking in with parents around the city to see if and how this policy has affected their family planning. Hey, Karen.

Hey, Jenae. You've been reporting a Mamdani baby boom, or at least trying to. Yes, trying to is the right word. So I think what I wanted to look at are all of these policies that the mayor's been promising and that Governor Kathy Hockel has been promising to fund, is it actually going to result in more New York babies? Whereas Mayor Mom Dany calls them, New York's cutest. But as I made some calls, experts very quickly squashed my dreams. It's too early to tell, basically, is the short answer. Birth data won't be ready for a while.

Data on the number of families with young children leaving the city won't be updated for a while. And really the other piece of this is we won't know whether more women are returning to the workforce because of child care options. So we won't have those numbers yet. What's a while, though, Karen? It's safe to say it's going to be a few years before we can truly call it if we ever get there, a mom-dani baby boom. All right. Well, what did you find out? Well, since we can't tell the data story, what I did want to do is kind of tell the family planning story and speak to New York families who are having these conversations with their partners, having these conversations with their kids. And I spoke to some parents about how they're making it work and what are they thinking about now.

Yes. Thank you for having me in your home. One of those parents is Alison Liu. I am a mom of a four and a half year old, and she's considering expanding her family. We are, you know, thinking about a second kid because we now have been through one cycle of pain for child care. But it's been really difficult to finalize that decision. Why did Allison say that it's difficult? Because they've already been through the pains and the struggles. of having to pay for child's care for their son.

Okay, I want to start with a more basic lesson first. For people who don't have kids, or maybe you do and you still don't get it, let's talk about what we mean by child care and the different grades, so to speak. Yeah. When you have a baby, they are an infant. There are some programs that are infant care, starting usually around six months, sometimes earlier. There is no free city program. So when you have a baby and you want to put them in child care, you have to pay fully for that.

The average cost is about $20,000 a year. Once your kid turns one, similar. There is no free program. You have to pay for child's care. When your child turns two, there currently is no free city program, but the mayor and the governor have promised to fund a pilot for two-year-olds starting this September. A very small one, TBD on how much that expands. What currently exists now, what we call free preschool, 3K and pre-K,

is free care for 3 and 4-year-olds. So essentially what you have is parents who want to go back to work and who want to have their kids in child care sort of desperately putting together money to make it until their kid turns three. Because once their kid turns three, they're eligible for the city's free 3K program. And then they continue on to pre-K and then at 5, they're in kindergarten, public school. Hallelujah. Yes, hallelujah. So now that Allison's kid is four, that kid can go through free preschool. So with that in mind, you know, what's stopping Allison from having another kid?

It's still a cost. It's still a cost because she's going to have to pay for at least the first two years of child care out of her own pocket. There's a question as to whether her child will be eligible for 2K when and if that comes to her neighborhood. So you're looking at two to three years of private pay. And she's looking at her budget thinking, can I afford this? Can I afford to raise two kids in the city? And I don't know that they want to go through those sacrifices all over again. I mean, they were paying $36,000 a year at one point.

What? That's on the higher end, isn't it? Absolutely. I mean, the average cost of child care in New York City is about $20,000 a year. But for many, many families, really depending on the neighborhood you're in, it can be thousands of dollars more than that. And Allison is, she's actually an organizer for New Yorkers United for Childcare. Okay, so she's not making much either. She's not. And she's also very intimately familiar with both the policy side.

And she also knows what parents are struggling and the way parents. have sort of made the math work. Even in my own family, right, we're like counting down the month, like how many more months do we have of private care? Because then that determines, okay, once our child is old enough to enter a 3K program, we can kind of breathe a little bit easier. There's still a lot of extra costs to pay, but now maybe you can think about taking a trip again.

Maybe you can think about maybe taking a job that makes you happier, but it's a little bit less pay. Maybe you can think about maybe moving summer with a higher rent. You can sort of adjust because that really big budget item is going to disappear once your child can make it into a 3K program. Right. And that's exactly what Allison has in mind here. Absolutely. We've made some really tough decisions in order to have child care so we can work so we can

raise our family here. If we had not gotten that 3K seat, we probably wouldn't still be here. Allison says her family relied on 3K to help them turn the corner financially. Her and her husband, for example, they had to go into debt. They took on up to, I think it's $15,000 of debt in order to get through those first few years of child care. They opted out of paying for health insurance in order to scrounge together enough to cover their care. Being a parent is really expensive. And they're not the first family that I've met and spoken to that have acquired debt to pay off care.

I did meet a single mom in Dittemus Park. I want to say last summer. And she also went into debt to pay for child care for her daughter. And again, I think it's because they know that they're. This is sort of a temporary pain until they can sort of get to that mark of free preschool and allows them to stay in the workforce, allows them to continue making money to be able to raise your children. Yeah. And, you know, when we think about child care, when we talk about child care, we talk a lot about what parents pay. But there's another thing that's affecting New Yorkers, which is their decision to go back to work.

Once you can put your child in child care, you can go back into the workforce. I met Sylvia Silverio. She's a mom of four on Sand Island. She told me that she already has four kids, but she had to leave the workforce after the birth of her youngest very recently. Silvio says it was hard at first to stop working, but after she gave birth to her fourth kid,

paying for child care actually would have been more than her entire paycheck of cleaning homes. She lives on San Island, which will not be included in the initial 2K rollout, but will have seats in 2027 when her son turns two. She says it would be really helpful if she could put her kid in 2K because she doesn't want to have any more kids and she wants to be able to return to work sooner. Yeah.

And, you know, about a third of women actually leave the workforce in New York City because of child care. That's right. Those are numbers that the state compiled. Yeah. Now, Karen, can we break down the policies of all of this? I know the mayor made an announcement. What's happening this fall? Okay.

So the first thing that's happening. this fall is this big 2K pilot that we've been talking about. This is for the first time, the city will offer free care for two-year-olds. It's going to be for about 2,000 two-year-olds starting in September. Today, we take one step to realizing a city where every New Yorker, every family, every child can afford to keep calling it their home. Now, the mayor has also announced additional seats for 3K. This is care for 3-year-olds, Momdani, added 2,000 more seats. And these seats were meant to alleviate high demand in certain neighborhoods.

What you had happened in previous years is parents were signing up, they were getting placed in schools that were either very far from where they lived and walking six blocks more with a toddler is like walking a thousand miles. It can take a very long time. I can only imagine. So parents were, say, living in Brooklyn, getting placements in Queens. And so he wanted to rectify that situation and really alleviate the seat shortage problem. Yeah.

And he targeted 56 zip codes where there's going to be more seats this fall. Those include neighborhoods like Park Slope, Canarsie, East Elmhurst, and Parkchester. Wow, 56 zip codes. That's a lot. I know parents must be breaking the Internet to get their kids signed up. You would think so. And Mayor Mom Donnie really made a push to really outreach. Sign up for pre-K.

Sign up for 3K. Yeah, Cardi B even did it. Yeah, they were doing a jingle. And, you know, there was ads on taxis. and Link NYC kiosks. But I reported with my colleague Liz Kim that actually applications for 3K and pre-K this year were stagnant. They were flat. So despite all of this outreach, despite all of these celebrations, despite all of this messaging, not many more people applied for these programs across the city.

Why is that? Part of that is, you know, you have declining birth rates. There's this fear around the immigration crackdown. So maybe family's not willing or wanting to really put their information. out there and, you know, they're just scared. They're staying home and maybe they're staying a little bit more in their silos. You also have families with young children that have left the city in droves. And I think to my colleague Liz Kim's point, I really raises questions about the mayor's reach to working class New Yorkers. What the mayor said when he was asked about the stagnation in applications

is he blamed former mayor Eric Adams. He said the Maldani administration has essentially inherited a disinvestment in outreach efforts. And so they're trying to really make up this gap. And the reality is that even though these programs help a lot of parents, you know, a lot of parents still remain outside of the system. The application data show that of all the three-year-olds who are eligible, about 50% of them applied for 3K. And for 4-year-olds, it's about 60% of those who are eligible applied for pre-K. Okay, so even though applications are stagnant right now, there are still parents out there who are hoping that the program reaches their neighborhood. Absolutely.

I think ideally what the mayor wants to do and the governor here and advocates is moved to a truly universal child care system. And what that means is it's not this patchwork system of, you know, piecing together three-year-old's care and four-year-old's care, but really from six weeks until five years old, a truly universal system that can benefit all families. Families like Paola Rodellas, who lives in Bushwick. she's crossing her fingers that the city brings a 2K program to her neighborhood soon. I'm 38 years old, so that's just like a whole other factor

and just figuring out like having a second child. Like, I'm getting older. It's going to become harder to conceive naturally. But the same time, it's like, well, if we can't afford it, then we can't afford it. But maybe if 2K really expands, expands into this neighborhood, that would be a huge help. Rodellis is currently fostering a child with her partner, and she's trying to figure out how to make all of the pieces of the puzzle fit.

She's a foster parent, and as a foster parent, you get a voucher to cover the cost of child care. But once they formally adopt, they'll be responsible for the cost, which in her neighborhood, she told me it's about $1,200 a month. And when she has to pay fully for child care, how does that affect her decision to have a second child? Does she wait one year until her adopted child can access 3K before trying for a second child? You know, can she even afford child care for her son when she adopts him? And she's also looking at her own timeline. She's in her late 30s. So if she's going to get pregnant, she knows it's going to be harder to do that the older she gets.

Yeah. The other thing to keep in mind is we've been talking a lot about free preschool programs, free 3K and pre-K programs. But the truth is when we talk about the city's free preschool programs, preschool programs for three and four-year-olds, 3K and pre-K, they're really only free for part of the day. Oh, my goodness. It's always something. Yep. So it actually runs for six hours a day and usually goes from September to June and it's closed in the summer.

So what are parents to do? Just pay the extra money, huh? Absolutely. How much do these programs cost? Well, we're talking about some programs have extended day. So if your program offers it, you can pay for the extra hours because who gets out of work at 2 p.m. Not I. And there's some programs that offer summer school, or in some cases, you have to go and find private summer school programs.

Okay, so how much do these programs cost? Allison, who we heard from earlier, said she was looking into summer camps and the average cost in her neighborhood can be $2,000 to $3,000 a month. But her son, Asher, who is four and a half, she said he's really been asking her for a sibling. He said to me, I'd love to have a bunk bed in my room, and then, like, I can be on the top bunk, and he can be on the lower bunk. And, like, then we go to the park, and I'll be on my scooter, and he'll be on the bicycle. And it will be just so great to not be alone. So I spoke to Asher, because kids deserve to have their voices heard, too. And what kinds of things would you like to do if you had a brother?

Play. Like what? Video games. He told me that he's already decided that his brother, if it's a boy, would be named Max. If it's a girl. I guess Max would be a girl name too. Hello. And the girl name is students.

That was a lot to digest, Karen. Thank you so much for ending with New York City's cutest. You're welcome, Jenae. Anytime. That's WNYC's Karen Ye. And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next.

time.